


Trials

by debtdoctor



Series: Fade Breakout AU [5]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition, Mass Effect
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canonical Character Death, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Dream Sequence, Fade Bullshit, Fade Dreams, Flashbacks, Hawke Dies, In the Fade, Inquisition spoilers, Mage!Hawke - Freeform, Non-Binary Hawke - Freeform, Other, POV First Person, Purple!Hawke, bloodmage!Hawke
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-12
Updated: 2016-02-12
Packaged: 2018-05-19 21:50:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,916
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5982034
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/debtdoctor/pseuds/debtdoctor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Does it count as a major character death if they're already dead?<br/></p>
            </blockquote>





	Trials

I’m pretty sure the Nightmare is dead. Corypheus kind of dead? Maybe. Probably. But it hasn’t bothered me since it hit the ground, legs going from an endless skitter to an occasional twitch.

_Everyone you love is going to die._

I had to suck down every lyrium potion in my bag, and nearly bled myself dry to boot. Blighted fucking demons don’t have any blood of their own.

The Inquisitor is okay. The Cheese Warden is okay. Even got to say goodbye to Varric.

_Anders is going to die._

I’m still surprised nothing has bothered me yet, spirit or demon, given the show I just put on. And how tired I am now. I could probably shoot off a few bolts, but it wouldn’t be smart.

So I walk. Limp, more like. But I walk. And I keep walking through this thrice-damned, Maker-forsaken, bloody fucking Fade.

I hate the Fade.

When the landscape changes from the barren, formless wasteland of the Nightmare to something two hairs off a shade of familiar, I duck into an alley, settle behind some crates, breathe, and try not to cry.

I’m alive. Probably. Physically in the Fade. Dying? Also probably, but I stopped the bleeding in the gash in my leg well enough. It’s the hole punched through my shoulder and the slashes in my gut I should probably be worried about. I don’t _think_ I’ve ripped my intestines, but it wouldn’t be the first time.

I can still twitch my fingers on my left side, so the shoulder might turn out fine. I wish I had a proper fucking healer. Wish I hadn’t had to send mine away.

_Mage, heal thyself._

I laugh, and it _hurts_ , so I sleep instead. Which just throws me deeper into the Fade.

_Fuck._

\------

I drink half a potion, I walk, I sleep, I wake up somewhere else. Eventually I find some Fade-elfroot to munch on. I’m not sure if it will actually help, but I figure if I _believe_ it will, _something_ will happen.

I’m honestly not sure what it is I’m walking _to_ , but it seems dangerous to sit still. I try not to think of exactly how it is I’m still walking.

_I shall not be left to wander the drifting roads of the Beyond._

I doubt whatever Chanter that wrote Trials imagined this. I ignore the spirits I see around. Spirits, demons, whatever. The wisps tend to congregate no matter what I do, but they’re as harmless as anything in the Fade can be.

I throw some mana towards healing my shoulder the third time I wake up. I’m pretty sure I don’t make it worse, and isn’t that a relief, but it garners the attention of… Something.

It glows, faceless and too tall, and I can tell it’s staring at me.

“So, what have _you_ thought of the weather, lately?” I try for light, careless. My voice breaks anyway.

It says nothing, but leans forward, reaches towards my shoulder.

“Hey, you’ve got to at least take me out to dinner first,” and it comes out as a yelp, and I take a step back.

Glowy moves forward, doesn’t stop reaching. I’m not even sure it heard me.

I try to swat it away with my good arm, but I pass right through. There’s a bigger glow, and then Glowy’s gone.

Nothing has happened. Still a hole through my shoulder. Still a gash in my stomach. My leg is still bad, still won’t fully bear my weight.

I _feel_ better, though. I try and heal my leg this time. It’s a smaller wound, the kind of thing Bethany would've tutted at me over if I asked her to heal it, instead of trying myself. The kind Anders would have me practice on before fixing my inept attempt.

It’s sore but closed when I’m done, some fuzzy, unspecified amount of time later, and I’m drained.

I take a nap. I wake up in my bunk in Gamlen’s place. I hear him talking in the main room, and his voice has that rasp in it, the kind he only ever got when yelling at my mother.

Carver walks in. “You could have _tried_ to avoid those hits, you know.”

“Oh, baby brother. Good to see you too.”

He scoffs and chucks a clean bandage at me. Some things never change. I pass out after wrapping my shoulder under Carver’s watchful gaze.

I wake up in the clinic, on one of Anders’ tables. The ceiling wavers in time to some weird pulse of Fade music that I can’t hear.

“You’ll be all right, love,” he says, working over my stomach. He sounds like he’s trying to reassure himself more than me.

“I know,” I lie, closing my eyes.

I wake up. I’m climbing out of Isabela’s bed, the pirate in question nowhere to be found. I throw some healing towards my gut, knitting the muscle together best I know how. It’s better than nothing.

My shoulder still has Carver’s bandage on it. I don’t check underneath, but instead open the door to join Izzy and Varric downstairs.

_Careful on the stairs, watch the leg..._

“Did I wear you out, sweet thing?” Izzy says, rolling her shoulders to draw attention to her breasts, and even though that’s classic Isabela, I grimace. This one hasn’t even bothered glamouring her skin to hide her purple scales.

“Something did, that’s for sure,” I say, sitting on a stool.

Varric chuckles, and it takes every ounce of self-control I possess to keep from laughing.

He’s got a _beard_. Are they even _trying_ anymore?

“Are you?” he asks, leaning forward, still smiling.

I snort, down my ale, and walk out of the bar.

I make my way down to the Docks. It’s twistier than it should be, and I’m moving through faces I know died years ago. There’s the second in command of the Sharps. The woman who worked for the tailor in the Alienage. The street rat Athenril cut down when she found him skimming off collection fees. Quentin walks by, and I grit my teeth before deciding not to follow him. I take a longer route to the Docks than usual- some streets flicker, like they can't decide whether the fires and blockades of the Qunari invasion are actually there or not.

I twitch my fingers to test my shoulder. Still hurts.

I stop outside the Qunari compound. The gates are unbarred, unlocked, and unguarded. I go in.

I’m not sure who I was expecting to be sitting on that big chair at the top of the stairs, but it wasn’t Merrill.

“Lethallen!” she yells, and she bounds down the stairs and sweeps me up in one of her bone crushing hugs.

The movement makes my shoulder scream. I scream too, and waver, suddenly dizzy.

“Oh, my. Well, let’s see what I can do here…” she says thoughtfully, taking a step back, and eases my slink to the ground.

\------

I lose track of it all. I wander around, something happens, I pass out. Rinse. Repeat. Reminds me of something Izzy said once, but I don’t think I’ve profited yet. Must still be on step two.

I wake up on this mattress. It’s not just a mattress. It’s a Maker-given gift.

_For there is no darkness in the Maker's Light, and nothing that He has wrought shall be lost._

I don’t think I’ve ever lain on something so soft. It _must_ be a miracle. I open my eyes and twitch my fingers to test my shoulder.

Everything is clean. And metal. There’s a window in the ceiling that looks like it has real glass, and it lets you stare straight out into the stars.

I don’t recognize any of the constellations in the green swirl of Raw Fade, but the Black City hangs near, ominous as always. It looks too close. That's a bad thing, I’m sure, but I can't remember why.

Despite the weirdness, the room is clearly someone’s house. It’s bigger than Gamlen’s, but not by much. Music plays softly, but there are no musicians. The instruments are unfamiliar.

There’s a glass tank, _glass_ , _Maker’s balls, how does anyone afford so much glass,_ making up a large part of one of the walls, and I leave the bed to stare at the fish swimming in it. I find my hand reaching, almost without my permission, for the large round button set into the space beside the tank.

Food floats slowly into the water in response.

I notice I’m not favoring my shoulder. I’m scared to look underneath Carver’s increasingly ragged bandage, so I just walk to the round door, searching out a handle.

It opens when I approach, without any input from me.

I wake up. Zevran, Isabela’s Zevran, is leaning over me. We’re outside, the sun is rising, and my back hurts from sleeping on the ground. I blink, slowly, trying to guard my eyes against the light.

“Ah, my dear Warden, we should be going soon, no? Our friendly mages have already packed the camp for us. Although,” he pauses thoughtfully, “I suppose Morrigan will expect something in return for her graciousness.”

He looks so _young_.

_Wait. Warden?_

I jolt upright and shake the thought from my head as I roll my pack together, quick as ever, and turn to face my companions. I twitch my fingers. Testing.

_Testing what?_

I wake up.

It occurs to me these memories may not all be mine.

 _“Hawke!”_  
_"Incoming!”  
"Is everyone all right?” _

The waves crash against the cliffs of the Wounded Coast. We walk through what I’ve dubbed Head Trauma Bay, lighting signals for Aveline.

Anders insists on lighting each one _with_ me, our mana weaving together to cast the flames, and all while holding my hand. Merrill hasn’t said anything, but her giggles tell me she thinks it’s adorable, and Varric’s silence proves only that he’s taking notes.

The earth rumbles, and I turn. I’m in Hightown.

The Chantry explodes, black feathers coat the ground, and Anders is sitting on a crate.

I don’t know what to do, don’t know if I can do this again.

If I choose differently, would it change anything?  
I have two health potions left. No lyrium. I can’t tell what elfroot in my pack is Fade-picked and what I had stuffed in there from before. I scuff my boot against the stone, sending feathers flying.

I send Anders away. Again. It’s harder doing this the second time, but now I give him a hug goodbye. I tell him I’m sorry I couldn’t show him why he was wrong. He kisses my forehead like an apology, like it wouldn’t have mattered anyway, and I watch him walk away, disappearing around the corner.

I twitch my fingers, _why, why would I do that,_ and I walk towards the Gallows.

I wake up, and Bethany’s alive. Carver dies in an ogre’s fist.  
I wake up, and Bethy’s captured by the Circle.  
I wake up, and Bethy becomes a Grey Warden.

I wake up, and I slit my baby _sister’s_ throat, and not Carver’s. It’s _her_ that’s dead from the taint in the Deep Roads.

_What has magic touched that it doesn’t spoil?  
_

I keep walking.

I wake up. I find a bar. Nothing around it. Just featureless, raw… Fade. The blank sign swings in a non-existent breeze. There’s music coming from inside, and voices.

_It’s dangerous to sit still._

I take a deep breath, twitch my fingers, and walk towards the entrance.


End file.
